Telling the Future: Why God Usually Doesn't

There was a time when I didn't know if my house would ever be filled with the chaos and high pitched laughter of little ones.  In fact, several years were fraught with the stress and shame of infertility treatments, the loss of two babies, and the feelings of incredible guilt and inadequacy, all which culminated in one particularly gut-wrenching day when a new series of tests came in and the nurse answered my "So this is it?" question with a sad grimace and a nod.

We had reached the end of the road.  There would be no children.

Until that day, I was positive we would get pregnant, that God would work a miracle as he had with Hannah, Sarah, Rachel, and Elizabeth.  I read my Bible, listened to sermons, and went about my day to day life with my ears and eyes hyper sensitive to any word from the Lord about our struggles, any direction He might give, any tiny hint of hope.

I wanted a baby so badly that many times, I read what I wanted to read, I heard what I wanted to hear.  In short, I saw God's answer everywhere, in everything...but it wasn't God at all. It was my own longing to make my own future.  But, it wasn't until I gave up and accepted whatever He chose for us that He worked His miracles...on His timeline.

Without this experience, I might still believe that knowing the future is a good thing.  Perhaps I might still be convinced that if I just knew why God allowed this or that trial in my life or if He just showed me where this was all headed or how long I had to endure that difficulty, then going through the storm would be easier.

Yet, I know the real truth--if God were to give us a hint at our future, we would feel the need to "help" Him along the way.  And the results would be catastrophic.

Such was the case with Abraham and Sarah.

God had told Abraham the future, that "You will have a son of your own who will inherit what you have" (Gen. 15:4).  Both Abraham and Sarah believed God.  They had faith.  Yet, after so many years passed, Sarah decided to help bring God's prophecy to pass.  

Scripture records that "Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children, but she had a slave girl from Egypt named Hagar.  Sarai said to Abram, 'Look, the Lord has not allowed me to have children, so have sexual relations with my slave girl. If she has a child, maybe I can have my own family through her'" (Gen. 16:1-2).

Sarah nor Abraham consulted God in this.  They attempted to bring about God's vision of the future through human means.  The result from this meddling was a boy named Ishmael.  Yet, he was not the son of promise.  God confirmed this later when He said, "[Sarah] will be the mother of many nations. Kings of nations will come from her.^'...Then Abraham said to God, 'Please let Ishmael be the son you promised.'   God said, 'No, Sarah your wife will have a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will make my agreement with him to be an agreement that continues forever with all his descendants'" (Gen. 17:15-19). 

Abraham and Sarah's attempt to force God's hand is still playing out centuries later in the Middle East as the Islamic descendants of Ishmael fight against the Jews.  

This same type of "taking over for God" happened later in Israel's history with Rebekah and her son, Jacob.

When Isaac was old and ready to die, he called in his older son, Esau to give him the blessing and inheritance typically given the older son.  Scripture records that "Rebekah was listening as Isaac said this to his son Esau. She said to her son Jacob, 'Listen, I heard your father saying to your brother Esau, ⁷ ‘Kill an animal and prepare some tasty food for me to eat. Then I will bless you in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ So obey me, my son, and do what I tell you.Go out to our goats and bring me two of the best young ones. I will prepare them just the way your father likes them.Then you will take the food to your father, and he will bless you before he dies” (Gen. 27:5-10).

Why would Rebekah interfere and trick her nearly blind husband into giving her favorite son, Jacob, the blessing and not her older son, Esau, as was tradition? What was she thinking!?

In all honesty, I think she was trying to "help" God just as did Sarah.  Years earlier when the two boys were still struggling in her womb, "The Lord said to her, 'Two nations are in your body, and two groups of people will be taken from you.  One group will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger'" (Gen. 25:23).

Could God have accomplished this future without Rebekah's help?  Certainly.  Yet, knowing the future led Rebekah to connive to bring it about, to force God's will to come to pass on her timeline and not His.  And due to her interference, the resulting animosity between two brothers exploded into enmity between two warring nations--Israel (Jacob) and Esau (Edom).

From Genesis to Malachi, the descendants of Jacob and Esau would be constant enemies.  From Esau came the Edomites from the land of Edom, and because of the hatred set in motion by Rebekah's meddling, several generations later, the Edomites refused to allow Moses and the ex-slave children of Israel to cross through their land on their way from Egypt to Canaan.

Even later, Esau's descendants helped destroy the temple in Israel.  The prophet Obadiah exclaims of Edom: "You did violence to your relatives, the Israelites, so you will be covered with shame and destroyed forever. You stood aside without helping while strangers carried Israel’s treasures away. When foreigners entered Israel’s city gate and threw lots to decide what part of Jerusalem they would take, you were like one of them" (Ob. 10-11).  King David even speaks of Edom's role in the destruction of Jerusalem, saying, "Lord, remember what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. They said, 'Tear it down! Tear it down to its foundations!'"

It makes me wonder if this animosity, this blood-revenge hatred would have been passed down from generation to generation had Rebekah not interfered, had she allowed God to bring His prophecy to pass without her help. Or would God have accomplished the same outcome but without all the animosity.

Sarah and Rebekah show us why God does not often reveal the future to us.  If you know what's coming down the road, you're hyper alert, looking everywhere for the turn-off that you know will take you to your destination.  The problem is, when you're watching and waiting, every exit looks like the right one.

The next time you or I wish we knew what our future held, we should remember God's graciousness in not giving us what we ask for.  

In our humanity, we'd probably just screw it up. 

Why We Read Every Last Page

I'll admit I have my favorite passages, those stories from my childhood that I am drawn to because I can visualize them (usually with Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses).  Then, there are those verses and books that are difficult, the kind that make me run rough hands through unruly curls, rub my throbbing temples, and sigh at the ceiling.

When it comes to the pages of Scripture, we all have our favorite and our not-so-favorite chapter and verse.  My father loves Revelation and anything prophetic.  I, on the other hand, am a people person and cultural analyst at heart, so I prefer the histories found in the Kings and Chronicles.

Yet, even though we have our favorite passages, that doesn't mean we're excused from studying the entire Word of God, yes, even if we think some passages are "too hard" or not really pertinent to us since God was speaking to the Jews and not us Gentiles.

Our perception of The Bible is often times warped.  Looked at one way, the tome does seem pretty big.  In fact, if a person were to drop a Bible on his toe, he you might think God sure said an awful lot.  But if one stops to consider that God fit the history of several thousand years into the Old Testament alone and then skipped 400 years between testaments before presenting the life of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament, well, that reveals a pretty small book, considering, an author God who just gives the highlights.

The Bible does mince words. Thus, when we pick and choose which passages we would like to study and ignore the rest, we don't know what we're missing out on.

My studies just this past week reminded me of how important it is for me to let Scripture interpret Scripture, to continue building a knowledge base of each book so I can better understand the other books, whether individually or in their totality.

Back in September of 2011, I was studying the book of Ezra.  In one post, I wrote on the exiles who rebuilt the temple, then celebrated after the new temple's foundation was built.  In the midst of that celebration, the returned exiles who had seen the former temple wept: "Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people" (Ez. 3:12-13).

While some of the weeping was due to happiness over this restoration, many tears were because of how ordinary this temple foundation was in comparison to the luxurious original built by Solomon and because even when physically restored, God's presence was not residing within the holy of holies as He once had.

This concept of disappointment is confirmed when later at the temple's completion, God spoke through the prophet Haggai: "'Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it seem to you like nothing in comparison?'" (Hag. 2:3).

This is what I understood at the time.  But because I had not yet studied the book of Ezekiel in depth, I missed another important reason why these exiles may have been crying. 

In the latter half of Ezekiel's prophecy, God gives a vision of His glory returning to a future temple.  In chapters 40-42, He even takes Ezekiel on a guided tour of that temple, wherein a man with a measuring rod reveals the height, width, and length of each wall in intricate detail, describing the gates, windows, courts, chambers, rooms, etc.  This future temple would be a huge complex, much larger than even Solomon's temple in all its glory.

Then, after receiving this blueprint, God says, "As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the plan. If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structure, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all its statutes, and all its laws. And write it in their sight, so that they may observe its whole design and all its statutes and do them" (Ez. 43:10).

Here, God invites Ezekiel to share this vision of the "new temple" with those exiles who are with him in Babylon, those who have yet to be released by King Cyrus to go back home. 

Surely, some of these same people who heard of this future temple expected that this prophecy would be fulfilled in their lifetime.  Surely, when Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem and gave orders for the temple rebuilt, they believed the temple built with their hands would be the magnificent one from Ezekiel's vision.

Yet, it wasn't.  Clearly.  In fact, it wasn't even as big as the temple King Solomon had built.  And so, they wept.

As such, their tears were not merely because they were looking back in sorrow over what once was and was no longer but also because they were looking forward in sorrow.  Anyone who had heard the detailed blueprint in Ezekiel's prophecy would immediately realize that this smaller temple could never be the one in the vision that saw God's glory return, never to leave again.

And so, their weeping was in the knowledge that God's promise to dwell with them forever was still far off because of their sin.

This revelation may not seem earth shattering, maybe not even important.  But, it spoke to me of how we should mourn.

Presently, Christians seem to want to mourn our present state by looking backwards to the "good ole days."  We mourn a country, a people who aren't as holy, as God-fearing as they were "back then."  Yet, instead of looking backwards all the time, I believe we should be looking forwards and mourning because of the holiness to come promised through the prophets, a time that seems so far from us at times.  

Both types of mourning require us to look at our sin, repent, and look to Christ.  However, looking backwards tends to focus more on people and their accomplishments as we wish we could be more like they were whereas looking forward tends to keep our focus more on God, His perfection, and His promises to come.  Whether we keep our hope in the past or in the future is important.

Had I said the book of Ezekiel was too difficult, too controversial, or too elusive to grasp completely, I would have missed the simple message God had planned for me.  It's a word of encouragement to all of us.  Even though we may prefer to read something else, God says to study His Word, and that means all of it.  

Who knows what simple truth He may have hiding for us in those favorite passages, perhaps little nuggets of life-altering wisdom that we'll never receive unless we veer from the well-worn path into the wilderness of those unknown books.  We may just find a missing piece we never knew we were looking for.


Image: from Derek Griz' blog, calling to Christians to read the Bible through in one year.

When God Tells You to Get Out of the Way!!

I got in God's way this morning, just stuck my size nine narrow sling-back heel in there and offered a quick, soothing word to an upset friend--a word I had no right to give.

She caught me by the water fountain as I rushed into worship service.  After dispersing the last of my six children to a parent, I wanted nothing more than to find my seat so no one would tsk tsk over my tardiness.

In hushed tones, she spoke a fear that she had offended someone when she had made a particular point in class earlier that morning.  I quickly brushed aside her worries, assured her that it wasn't a big deal and that I agreed with her Biblical stance.

In my mind, this was one of those issues that even close family might disagree on but still live quite peacefully on the firm foundation of Christ.  "It's no big deal," I smiled before quickly moving away to take my seat.

Hours later, I closed the door for a Sunday afternoon nap.  The day's ever-present noise and rush stopped, fell to the silence of the rain on the windows.  And in that silence, I felt the sudden, chastening hand of God more strongly than I have in quite some time.

Who did I think I was!?  Was I God to convict her of how she should relate to another sister in Christ?

God clearly told me I had gotten in His way, that He was doing a work in my friend's heart and who was I to give her false reassurance that everything was ok? 

In that moment, I felt like the prophets of the Old Testament, those saying what was in their own hearts versus in God's heart; those speaking what they thought the Israelites wanted to hear--messages of peace, restoration, and prosperity--instead of true messages of repentance and judgment.  Jeremiah said these false prophets, "have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace" (Jer. 6:14).

Giving advice is easy to do.  Giving Godly advice is harder.

And what's even harder?  Making sure our Godly advice doesn't impede the Holy Spirit's conviction upon someone's soul.

As Oswald Chambers said, "Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses the conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God."

This quotation is true to the non-believer and the believer alike.  Even once one is saved, his relationship with God is still what bothers him most.

After the Holy Spirit convicts a lost soul unto repentance, the Spirit's conviction still continues to play an active role in the believer's life, albeit this time it is a conviction unto a deeper relationship with God, unto a life where we become more like Christ, unto further repentance.  As Christ told His disciples, "when the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you" (Jn. 16:13-15).

In other words, the Spirit's conviction acts as a guide, making us more like the Father and Son.

When others seek out our counsel, we can unintentionally sidetrack them from what God is doing in their lives if we rush to give a comforting answer above all else (and in all honestly? comfort is what I want to do for my friends). Yet, if we truly have their best interests in mind, we must try harder to speak the truth in love, to not be afraid to say, "Well, if God is convicting you about that, then perhaps you should do something."

And if we do screw up like I did and stick a foot where it doesn't belong?  We must then be courageous enough to go back to that friend, admit our unwise counsel, and thank the Spirit for convicting us so we could make it right. 




Photo credit Michael M. Schwab/Getty Images

The Dangers of Ear Tickling

We've all seen them on television, read about them on the Internet, perhaps even sat on a pew under their tutelage.  Whatever the circumstance, there is never a shortage of eccentric people claiming to be God's mouthpiece.

Some achieve notoriety, warning that the end of the world is coming on such and such a date.  Then, there are those self-appointed prophets who either twist the Word of God beyond recognition or lay it on the chopping block, choosing a positive self-help gospel of love and peace while discarding those hard passages that are perceived as "not pertaining to modern society" or just too judgmental.

Although many find humor in the ridiculousness of some of the prophesies, a false word of God is nothing to laugh about.

In the book of Ezekiel, God condemns Israel's false prophets for leading a nation of exiles astray.  The prophets would "prophesy from their own inspiration," saying "Listen to the word of the Lord!"; yet, it would be their own words, not God's, that would flow forth (Ez. 13:2).

Nobody wanted to hear of a seventy year exile.  Nobody wanted to hear about repentance and having to deny their flesh to change their hearts.  So, these prophesies chose to tickle the people's ears,weaving false words of hope and the quick restoration of Israel to her homeland. 

While it may initially seem almost harmless for these men and women to speak a false prophecy that would not come true, nothing could be further from the truth.

Ezekiel gives two reasons why false prophecies are so destructive.  First, he says, "You [prophets] have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of the LORD" (Ez. 13:5).

Simply put--God's prophets did not stand in the "breaches," the gaps in the spiritual wall surrounding Israel's people.  They failed to protect Israel, failed to fill in those gaps with the truth of God's Word and, thus, "build a wall," thereby shoring up the spiritual defenses the Israelites needed to face God's judgment to come.

Instead, the false prophets plastered over those gaps in the people's spiritual defenses with pretty whitewashed falsehoods of peace, hope, and a quick end to their sufferings.  The problem was that when the floods of God's wrath would come, the gaps would again be revealed, exposing how unprotected God's people truly were (Ez. 13:10-13).

The only way to prepare God's people for His judgement was by preparing their hearts, strengthening their spiritual defenses.  To accomplish this preparation, the people first needed to repent of their sin and accept the justice of God's judgment.  Yet, the prophets failed to encourage repentance.

As such, Ezekiel condemns them because they "have encouraged the wicked not to turn from his wicked way and preserve his life" (Ez. 13:22).  Without being presented with the truth of God, the wicked saw no need to repent and continued in their sin, which led to their eternal death.

While the prophet's falsehoods were devastating for the wicked, Ezekiel also states they were devastating for the righteous as well, condemning the prophets "Because you disheartened the righteous with falsehood when I did not cause him grief" (Ez. 13:22).

God's truth, then, is needed both for the unrighteous and the righteous.  

While we may want to discard these passages with the thought that prophets are merely those who look into the future, who receive visions or special revelation from the Lord, the various definitions of prophet imply that a modern-day prophet can be anyone who claims to speak for God, anyone who claims to proclaim the truths of God.

In the New Testament, Paul charged Timothy to "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Tim. 4:2-5).

From Ezekiel's day through the time of Jesus until now--people would rather hear messages that are encouraging versus ones that ask them to examine their own lives and turn from their sin.  The time period may be different, but human nature remains unchanged.

This is why we Christians must be so very careful in what we attribute to God, in how we use Scripture from God's Holy Bible. Otherwise, we, too, can be guilty of not preparing the people for God's wrath to come so they don't feel a need to repent and of discouraging the righteous.  

He's looking for just one person to stand firm.  For you, for me...to speak the truth of His word in and out of season.  To speak the truth of His word in love even if it's not politically correct, even if it costs us our lives.

May God not say of our world what He said of Israel: "I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one" (22:30).

We must expose the falsehoods that exist in our culture, find the places where the gospel is needed, and stand there in the gap with the truth of God's word.



Image: C. Jeremy Price on Flick'r

Can America Learn from Israel's Mistakes?

Despite its economic woes over the past few years, America still ranks among the top ten wealthiest countries in the world.
Honestly? It's what Americans expect--to be the most powerful, the wealthiest, the most innovative. Even when the outlook looks dim, there always seems to be an underlying belief that things are destined to get better over time..."because this is America, the greatest nation in the world."

It wasn't too many thousands of years ago that another nation felt the same as many Americans--blessed, better than everyone else, undefeatable .

In the days of King Solomon, Israel was at the top of its game in terms of its economy, size, and military might. Scripture records that "all the kings of the earth were seeking the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart" (2 Chron. 9:23). With each visit, the foreigners added to Israel's wealth so that by the end of his opulent reign, "The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem, and he made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the lowland" (2 Chron. 9:27).

God had blessed Israel beyond its wildest dreams, transforming the descendants of Egyptian slaves who had wandered aimlessly in the desert for forty years into the most powerful nation on earth.  

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God described all He had done to bless Israel as a nation: "I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you" (Ez. 16:10-14).

Yet, the nation of Israel disregarded God's laws, "played the harlot" by worshiping other gods.  To add insult to injury, Israel used all those blessings God had given it to create idols: "You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.  Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.  Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them" (Ez. 16:17-19).

God repeats the word "My" throughout the passage to emphasize the fact that all the nation's wealth had come from Him.  Yet, all the gold, silver, cloth, oil and decadent foods--Israel used it to court not only the favor of false gods but to also court the favor of pagan countries like the Egyptians, Philistines, and Assyrians (v. 26-28).

A powerful, wealthy nation did not give God thanks for the blessings, but rather used those gifts for its own evil, wicked purposes as it turned its face almost entirely away from God--sound familiar?

History records that the Israelites did not repent and turn back to God.  Instead, they continued to think because they were God's chosen people, He would never turn His back on them.  Even when His blessings began to dry up like a raisin in the sun, they still believed they were immune from His judgment--because they were citizens of Israel, God's chosen nation, which made them the greatest--right?

Wrong.  God warned Israel time and time again that He would judge them for their worship of false idols, for their ingratitude, for their breaking of His holy law.  He warned He would "give you [Israel] into the hands of your lovers [the nations], and they will tear down your shrines...strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and will leave you naked and bare...they will stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords...They will burn your houses with fire" (Ez. 16:39,41).

Not too many years later, God did just that, giving Israel into the hands of its enemies, which stripped the nation of its wealth, massacred its citizens, and burned the city of Jerusalem with fire. 

As the old saying goes, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  

America must not believe itself insulated from God's wrath just because it has received God's blessings all these years.  Instead, it must seek to learn from Israel's mistakes.  If not, it, too, will be doomed to walk this same road, repeating the mistakes of the too many proud nations that have come before us.